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Poet Laureate II - Canibus



     
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Poet Laureate II Lyrics


Yo, why is the Ripper so ill? //
That would be an unpardonable breech of confidence for me to reveal //
He said, One of these days all eyes will be on me //
When they look up in the sky and see the neon C //
Rhymes inscribed on a nickel disk encased in a glass with an ion beam for longevity //
For more than ten centuries, impressions and memories //
The first time-machine inventor will mention me //
Canibus was a visionary indeed //
He believed light could travel in multiples of c //
The organic supercomputer that solved the mysteries of Klein-Kaluza with two blue metric rulers //
Liked Cool J but thought Steven Jay Gould was cooler //
And he never liked to propagate rumors //
Smoked Canary Island cigars //
Liked American luxury cars and beautiful Asian broads //
He had a strong mind //
He used to philosophize about rhymes while he was pruning his bonsais //
He claimed that he had written the greatest rhyme of all time //
But he would never take it out of his archives //

He wrote two songs per day //
And was constantly experimenting with his wordplay //
In his youth he did a report on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey //
He got a F but he deserved an A //
I followed his career from the first day //
It seemed the lack of support contributed to his inert ways //
Ive seen him put in twenty-four hour workdays //
With deferred pay, undeterred by the worst shame //
Public humiliation was the worst pain //
He was spinning out of control like a class five hurricane //
He said he wouldnt want another emcee to suffer the same //
Especially when theres nothing to gain //
He was the illest alive but nobody would face it //
He spit til his tongue was too torched to taste it //
Properly funded corporations Carbon-dated his latest creations //
To extract the information, they found it utterly amazing //
They claimed the body of his work was the same thing as a priceless painting //
Never mattered to him the art galleries hated him //
Cause Thomas Kinkade called and said he would take ten //
Complete enigmas wrapped in puzzles encrypted in language //
With sound but without shape or signature //
Kept files in his garage on MS-DOS in a fireproof pod, we thought it was odd //
Outside there was a shed with an Oppenheimer lock //
He apparently kept more wax than Madame Tussaud //
We were in total awe cause it blew our minds //
So many rhymes that were intricately designed //
He WAS poet laureate of his time //
And if you dont mind Id like to share some of his rhymes //
Alone in my room looking through the thirty-two X telescope zoom //
Adjusting the focus of the moon //
One should not assume the philosophy of David Hume is nothing more than a subjective conclusion //
What is the maximum field rate application? //
The runaway glaciation surrounding the ocean basin //
Affects the population fluctuation on a continuous basis but thats just the basics //
The juxtaposition of Can-I-Buss position //
The precision of something no other has written //
Way above and beyond what was intended //
The unparalleled malleable enunciation of a sentence //
You didnt go to college, obviously //
I can tell by your ungodly unintelligible terminology //
Your remarkable odyssey //
The rhymes at modest speeds when the brain orders the body not to breathe //
Your competency is not up to speed, youre not in my league //
You couldnt possibly be hotter than me //
Or oppositely at minus twenty-five degrees //
Youll squeeze but the condensation makes rifle barrels freeze //
Allow me to speak figuratively, nigga please //
My intellectual propertys about the size of Greece //
Your counselor advised you not to speak //
My counselor advised me to keep rhyming until they stopped the beat //
In the words of Joseph Heller, I learned how to write better, even though it sort of irked me //
He said he didnt understand the process of the imagination but he felt he was at its mercy //
Which exploits my point perfectly //
And certainly reinforces the reason why nobodys probably ever heard of me //
Couldnt understand what I mean by ill //
Lest you try to translate what I print to film //
This is the line of will, the circle of time, the cycle of eternity, the emergence of one line //
Academic phonetics render critics tongue-tied //
The personified dry humor of cum laude alumni //
A wise man sees failure as progress //
A fool divorces his knowledge and misses the logic //
And loses his soul in the process obsessed with nonsense with a caricature that has no content //
My style is masterful, multilateral, I could battle a fool and be naturally cruel //
Words of scorn are a disastrous tool, from an existentialists view Im a better rapper than you //
Grab the mic and rip your physical fabric in two, my attitude is fucked up but admirable //
Different methods interpreted into different forms //
From entirely different perceptions and seen from different norms //
Not just spitting a poem, theres much more involved //
Theres much more pieces of the puzzle for you to solve //
Forty-eight orders of mechanical laws //
And rays of creational cause enhance the cadence of my bars //
Maybe I am self-absorbed //
But thats the effect, to find the cause you should ask my A&R //
Today is what it is but only because yesterday was what it was //
Permitting youve heard of Beelzebub //
A tale of demons and drugs, pissy drunk in the club //
With the DJ doing the needle rub, chances are youd never see me, son //
Yeah, I know my names Canibus but I cant help you if you need a dub //
I came to holler at some big booty bitches and listen to the speakers thump //
Whered you get conceited from? Im so nice on the mic they want to beat me up //
Its deep as fuck, I aint seen it all but Ive seen enough, really unbelievable stuff //
Theres a lot of times when I want to speak but Im stuck //
I should leave this rap shit alone and kick my incredible rhymes in the privacy of my own home //
My imagination is my own, the liberty to speak freely lyrically on the microphone //
With a pen in my hand I bring motion to the Enneagram and become Can-I-Millennium Man //
Engrave my back with the Emperors Stamp //
Been spitting scientific rap since the seventeenth century began //
Trying to escape the wicked empire of Def Jam in the land where lyrics are bland and heretics hang //
Every warrior has an ax to bury, but he has to learn to discern between enemy and adversary //
I said to myself, Germaine, this is insane, its suicide, its controlled flight into terrain //
I fought to regain control the plane but went up in a ball of flames //
And got banned from the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame //
For two bars I kept hearing in my head over and over again //
It cost me everything //
Im convinced now that more than the truth is at stake //
Where people create language that pretends to communicate //
Euphemisms are misunderstood as mistakes //
But its a byproduct of the ghetto music we make //
From an extroverted point of view, I think its too late //
Hip-Hop has never been the same since eighty-eight //
Since it became a lucrative profession theres a misconception //
That a movement in any direction is progression //
Even though the potency of it lessens //
Big money industries writing checks to suppress the question //
And nobody gives a fuck no more //
No one goes to the bookstore ever since the confluence of Moores Law //
But I stay in the lab like Niels Bohr, his son Aage, Edward Lorenz and Leo Szilard //
Lyrically I took rap music and turned the knob //
To the right full-throttle and added panache //
Why would I argue with my own conscience over the truth //
Thats like me telling myself, Dont tell me what to do //
Dialyses and analyses of battle emcees, sometimes I say things I myself cant believe //
My lyrical is so skillfully elliptical, I can understand how it makes you miserable //
You wonder why I never let you play your beats for me? //
And why I keep my studio enshrouded in secrecy? //
You wonder whats my infatuation with Alicia Keys? //
Canibus, why dont you speak to me? //
Yo, I meant it when I said no one can shine on a song that features me //
Thats why I said it so vehemently //
You need to replace the hate with respect, Im probably the best yet //
Poet Laureate! //

Enjoy the lyrics !!!
Born Germaine Williams in 1974 in Jamaica, Canibus moved to the United States with his mother at a young age. Because his mother's career required constant relocation, the family moved frequently and the soon-to-be rapper found solace within himself. His rhetorical abilities blossomed later, once hip-hop became the guiding force in his life. He began rhyming and in the mid-'90s joined a group called T.H.E.M. (The Heralds of Extreme Metaphors.)

This group consisted also of his partner Webb. Following a fallout with his partner, Canibus pursued a solo career and began infiltrating the mix-tape circuit. By 1997, he had approached the brink of the major-label rap game, guesting regularly on high-profile releases: He contributed to "Uni-4-orm," an inclusion on the Rhyme & Reason soundtrack also featuring Heltah Skeltah and Rass Kass; "Love, Peace & Nappiness," an inclusion on the Lost Boyz's Love, Peace & Nappiness also featuring Redman and A+; "Making a Name for Ourselves," an inclusion on Common's One Day It'll All Make Sense; the non-album remix of Wyclef Jean's "Gone Till November."

And most famously, "4, 3, 2, 1," an inclusion on LL Cool J's Phenomenon also featuring Redman, DMX, and Method Man.

Of the several guest appearances, "4, 3, 2, 1" certainly meant the most, as it brought together many of New York's preeminent hardcore rappers and thus ushered Canibus into that same elite class. At the same time, however, Canibus lashed out shortly afterward with the Mike Tyson-featuring "Second Round K.O.," where he rhymed, "So I'ma let the world know the truth, you don't want me to shine/You studied my rhyme, then you laid your vocals after mine."

In fact, the entirety of the song directed barbed rhymes at LL: "You walk around showin' off your body cause it sells/Plus to avoid the fact that you ain't got skills/Mad at me 'cause I kick that sh*t real niggaz feel/While 99 percent of your fans wear high heels," and so on. Shortly thereafter, LL sought his revenge, releasing "The Ripper Strikes Back" on the Survival of the Illest soundtrack (1998) and thus channeling even more attention toward Canibus.

From the track's chorus ("Can-I-bus? Yes you can!") to practically every line of the verses ("You soft as a newborn baby takin' a nap/Make my dick hard with that bitch-ass track/Where you at? smokin' in some one-room flat/Suckin' on Clef's dick hopin' to come back"), LL unleashed a fury of insults and threats. The media, of course, elevated the battle to grand heights, as even MTV gave the story headlines. In the aftermath of 2Pac's and Biggie's deaths, such confrontations fascinated the rap community, and Canibus certainly capitalized on his newfound publicity.

As for his debut full-length, Can-i-bus (1998), though, the response was sobering. Critics expressed little support, and sales quickly dropped as listeners also felt genuinely disappointed. Executive produced by Wyclef, the album suffered on many levels, both production-wise and rhetorically as well (critics targeting Canibus' delivery more than his lyrics or themes). The momentum that "Second Round K.O." had generated simmered almost immediately, and it didn't help that LL's "Ripper Strikes Back" found substantial acceptance at the time as well.

In the two years following the release of Can-i-bus, the rapper maintained an extremely low profile, much in contrast to the regular guest appearances he had made leading up to his debut. As a result, when he finally did return with his follow-up album, 2000 B.C. (2000), few noticed, it came and went generally unheard, and Canibus returned to the underground after parting ways with Universal. He continued to record albums and release them on the independent circuit (including 2002's Mic Club, 2003's Rip the Jacker, and 2005's Mind Control); furthermore, he retained a small base of fans as well, yet his days as the next-big-thing had clearly come and gone, as they similarly had for so many other talented rappers.

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